Chronicals of Lake Narocz by Mieczyslaw Lisiewicz: Author's Forward

Chronicals of Lake Narocz by Mieczyslaw Lisiewicz: Author's Forward

Chronicals of Lake Narocz by Mieczyslaw Lisiewicz

This long out of print autobiographical work by this
Polish author is reproduced here in full. I have transcribed the work
and present it here for all to read. Copyright remains the property of
the owners whoever and wherever they are. If anyone who is reading this
has any historical facts, documents, maps or photographs about Narocz
I would be very grateful if you would contact me, Alan
at Landschaft I hope readers enjoy, as I have, the tales from this
forgotten corner of the world.

Author's Forward

Metadata

Synopsis

The Chronicals of Lake Narocz is really a collection
of essays and semi-fictionalised historical sketches. The author's holidays
spent at the Hostel on the lake form the narrative weave of the book.
The author's forward below explains how publication was interrupted by
the start of WWII, and tells the remarkable tale of how his wife carried
the manuscript as she fled the war, eventually being confined by the Soviets
in Siberia.

Lake Narocz, following numerous border changes over
history is now in modern Belarus renamed Lake Narach. From Lieswicz's
time to this day is a popular resort location.

One of the most ansorbing parts of this book concerns
the Great War / First World War a great offensive took place there in
March-April 1916 that was militarily a Russian failure, but was part of
the effort by the Allies to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun.
So arguably, the Russians achieved a strategic success by preventing the
Central Powers from diverting troops to the life and death struggle at
Verdun, where the French eventually prevailed. Wikipaedia - Map of Eastern Front

Author's Forward: The Text

THE "CHRONICLES OF LAKE NAROCZ" had undergone many vicissitudes
of fortune before they reached Scotland and found themselves in the hands
of the editor. The matters described there had been collected by me near
the Lake Narocz, in the Uzlo tourist hut, where I was in the habit of
spending a few months yearly for five successive years. When the book
at last was completed some time before the outbreak of the present war,
in 1939, it was left at the editors to be published at their convenience.
The last galleys of the set manuscript reached me as late as the beginning
of August, 1939- Some-thing prompted me to ask for two extra copies of
the rough proofs instead of the usual one.

At four o'clock in the morning, on 20th August, 1939,
I was summoned straight from the shores of the Lake Narocz to report for
duty in the 2nd Polish Air Force regiment. I at once packed some luggage,
not forgetting to take with me the corrected proofs of the book, together
with the sketches and photographs, to give them to the publishers in Cracow.
The second copy I gave to my wife, instructing her to guard it well.

My dear wife fulfilled my wish in every respect. The
fates of the war forced her to wander all over that part of Poland, from
Wilno, southwards, to Kolomyja, from there north-wards to Bialystok, thence
southwards again to Lwow. There she was arrested, thus sharing the fate
of all the educated classes; she was allowed fifteen minutes in which
to prepare for the long and dreadful journey to Ural and still further
to Siberia. Although she did not manage to take many neces-sities, she
did not forget the manuscript.

She guarded the manuscript with her dear life. She slept
and ate beside it. She kept it near her heart in case there would be an
unexpected search, for no Polish books were allowed in the camp. I do
not even know all her adventures and those of the manuscript. I can only
guess many of the details, others I heard from third parties. Some pages
and two complete chapters are. missing. Not only that, but the bad condition
of the brittle, low quality paper, as is usual with proofs, tells its
own tale.

I have decided just to leave the book as it was, without
correcting or completing the missing chapters. I do not intend to reconstruct
tales of the white hare and his adven-ture with Zloty Mykita ("Golden
Brush"), a fox from above the river Naroczanka. I doubt if I could rewrite
now in true spirit the beauty of a spring which both my wife and I saw
and felt deeply by the shores of this lake on the Lithuanian borderland.
On that occasion we heard the trumpets of the winds as they blew across
the wild tree tops; giving the effect of some mighty orchestra accompanied
by the salvos of the breaking ice Hoes on the lake surface, as they piled
one on the top of another. How could 1. recollect once more in my imagination,
now so weary, or in my war-worn mind, the atmosphere of the awakening
earth, as .it tried to break the unbearable ice bonds? How could I resuscitate
the scents of the damp undergrowth of the forest or the echoing cries
of the wild birds through the dark curtain of night?

This dedication of spring I made then to my wife. To-day
the whole book, clumsily written, as I now feel, I offer her humbly, in
grateful admiration. She came through the hard tests more victorious than
I.

But enough of this. Personal matters, in the face of
to-day's happenings, have no meaning, do not count, are unimportant. Each
one of us will be called upon to give an account from his or her deeds,
elsewhere and at some other time.

When, one well-remembered day in London, I was handed
a parcel from Russia, I at once realized what it was, but I hesitated
a long time before opening it. I was afraid that all my wife's trouble
was in vain, that all that was written in these chronicles was no longer
of interest to anyone.

However, I opened it and, thinking of all those of us
who are here in Great Britain, in the eye of the whirlwind, began to try
to get the book published. The eye of the whirlwind is the name given
by sailors to that strange place in the centre of that cosmic whirlpool
where there is absolute peace and fair weather, while the winds rave all
around. That peace is always only a short pause between one storm and
the next.

At the moment there reigns over us that deceptive peace.
Before the "eye" passes us by, we should make the most of the possibility
of a short breathing space and prepare ourselves for a new struggle, even
harder than. the former. Before we can look around, we shall be swallowed
in the roar of break-ing worlds, the fiery splashes of astral foam from
the sea of' blood and fire.

But while there is still time, perhaps these unconnected
matters of the Lithuanian forests and lakes will permit some one of us
to realize what he is fighting for and why he fights. He may realize that
the aim of this war is not vengeance for the home taken from him, for
the prosperity, for the soiled joy of life. The aim of the Struggle is
not personal gain. We are fighting for the right to a clean, unspoiled
morning or evening prayer together with the animals, earth, clouds, and
water - for many generations. Therefore we, to whom has fallen the task
of returning the history of the world to its proper order, returning peace,
may not shrink from drink-ing the bitter draught to the dregs. We may
not even ask, as Christ asked; "Father, take away this cup." We may only
ask for a greater share of pain and anxiety, that we may liberate from
them forever our children and our lovely country.

Perhaps it will be a good thing, I thought, if someone
can tear himself away from the sad realities and take his thoughts to
the colourful waters, where the shapes of the fish show in the lazy peace
of mid-day. Let him take his thoughts to the woods, where live the wolf,
sharp lynx, deer with the sorrow-ful eyes, large-eyed hare, where there
dance in the dawn light the fiery squirrels, and the birds, summer and
winter, hold their secret ceremonies of twittering life.

I should like the reader in this way to realize the
ephemeral nature of all phenomena in comparison with the eternity of the
earth, the unimportance of individual beings in face of the continuity
of the species. He should understand the meaning of the struggle for existence,
a struggle which pays no regard to to-day; he should understand the right
of natural selection and the law of the necessity of conscious personal
sacrifice. All these matters of the earth, water and air show what was
so well understood by Kipling or Dygasinski: that there is no room for
the good, only for the best. He who wishes to live must make every effort,
take advantage of every opportunity. The. nature of things is not to forgive
any carelessness, any mistake, any contradiction of oneself. It destroys
and roots out that which is not diligent enough; kills that which is not
prudent enough; condemns to destruction that which is not sufficiently
alert, or not wise enough - that is, the weak; curses with forgetfulness
the wilful and selfish.